The Hasbro Takeover Won’t Happen

So I shared a story from a Twitter user two days ago. It contained a report saying that Hasbro had been in talks with Mattel in an attempt to take over. Or, at the very least, merge together. Cue fans (who have no idea what they’re talking about) coming out with “pros and cons of a Hasbro takeover”. Fact is this takeover will not happen.

And that's not just me "spouting my opinion as if it's fact"; I'd be interested in seeing what a Hasbro takeover would do to Mattel and the properties it owns. But any agreement between the two would have to go through the Federal Trade Commission. And the second paragraph of this article about business mergers could see  an agreement fall at the first hurdle.

If you want my opinion though, it's this. Fans are hoping this takeover goes ahead because they hate these changes so much. I've already come out against these changes myself, as you can see here. But I'm a realist, I live in the present and I base my opinions on the facts at hand. And the fact is, even if this merger went ahead, nothing would change (at least in the short term). And here's why.

1. These deals take months to complete. They require a lot of paperwork to even get to the point where the FTC will get involved and judge whether competition is damaged by the deal going ahead. And considering we're talking about America's two biggest toy companies here, it's most likely they'll rule against it because Hasbro will, most likely, have a monopoly.
2. Mattel acquired HiT in 2011. The show felt the full impact of that in 2013. As much as fans want to ignore this, it takes years to produce a series or a special. From the concept stage, to the writing, storyboards, research, character designs, animation, voice acting, music all the way to post production. It all doesn't just happen overnight, and we've already seen that Big World, Big Adventures is nearly ready to go. So no takeover is gonna stop it.
3. We're talking about an American company acquiring another American company. Who's to say that anything would change? Hell, things could get worse for all we know. But hey, let's continue to let blind hatred of changes to a preschool show (always has been, always will be) cloud out judgements...

Overall, all these presumptions over something that might not even happen are bloody ridiculous. Fans need to get their heads out of their arses and actually focus on real problems that the fanbase has and deal with them in order to make the fanbase look like less of a toxic dumpster fire. If you won't take it from me, take it from this (1:04-1:47).

That is a problem. That is something that should be stamped out. Not what could happen with two big businesses or with a show that's not targeted at us.